


A Honking Goose Chase

by wanderNavi



Series: order of one black coffee, the whole pot [1]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Case Fic, Gen, bastardizing some Hudson River School paintings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-17
Updated: 2019-10-17
Packaged: 2020-12-20 23:46:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21065189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wanderNavi/pseuds/wanderNavi
Summary: On November 18th, the Usher Foundation investigates its latest incident involving a painting.





	A Honking Goose Chase

**Author's Note:**

> This is a warmup for a bigger Usher Foundation fic. In the typical American fashion, featuring more guns and direct action.

and you tell Tyler he can fucking can it, okay, he’s not the asshole in charge of pinning down every damn report of violent supernatural incident in the country. Can you get me the guns or _not?_ Normal moose are already abject terrors and this one can probably crush a tank, so – I already told you hunters will be useless, have you fucking listened to a single word I said – _Shut up!_ Just shut

* * *

Local authorities found the body by luck, about an hour and a half walk off from what passes for a highway in north Minnesota, just a spit’s throw south of the U.S.-Canadian border. It takes Rhea an extra hour to reach the site due to everyone belatedly noticing on the second loop that the GPS and compasses strayed off course. Sylvia glances down at the paper map in her gloved hand and once again considers burying it at the bottom of her bag for the help it’s been.

She, Rhea, and the FBI escort met the Voyageurs National Park rangers back at International Falls the afternoon before, where a park volunteer nervously greeted them and used a red ballpoint pen to draw directions on a folded park map. FBI already collected and delivered the mutilated and decomposing body back to Virginia last week, and Eric is leading the team back at base hunting down the location of the painting that likely kickstarted this whole episode. Sylvia holds low hopes of gaining more insights from the site itself.

Campers and hikers visiting the park stick to the south shore of Kabetogama Lake, where campgrounds, trails, and visitor centers line the banks. Along the north side of the park, on the Rainy Lake’s U.S. border, are more visitors, but here in the middle of the silent trees on the peninsula making up Kabetogama’s north shore, there are few sights or sounds of human activity. For the almost month prior, the trickle of trailblazers and scenic photographers with their leashed pet dogs pinched off to nothing. There were no people. There were no animals.

There was a body, found in the middle of the forest, upon investigation of the odd dead zone. Strips and pockets of its flesh were torn and gouged out. Its fingers were shriveled and dried out, frozen in an empty clench for something unreachable. As delicately as the last team tried to pack up the body, its brittle, freezing strands of fine hair snap and crumble at the lightest touches. In some places, the bone had shifted under the leathery skin and flesh, into too sharp ridges. While in other planes, the bones underneath had been scoped out into too flat plains and gentle hills.

“Three days later,” Eric mutters into their check in phone call last night, “and the skin still feels like touching dry ice. We found bits of wood scraped under the fingernails and what might be tar – forensics is taking its sweet time. Still need to see what clues can be picked out of the fibers in the clothing.”

“Any idea when our John Doe got freeze dried?”

“Going by the style of the windbreaker and the boot, recently. Going by the ice mummification and general resemblance of glacier remains, uh, a long time ago. We’re still trying to find an identity.”

Silence chews on itself over the line. “Think we’ll find varnish and oil paint stains?”

Sylvia groans, flicking through a dossier. “Turns out they already did. Luckily for us, I don’t think this is a new painting. You ever been to Dallas to see Frederick Edwin Church’s _The Icebergs_?”

“Not another Hudson River School.”

“It’s another Hudson River School.”

Arctic exploration gripped the western public imagination during the 1850s, including Church’s. In the trend of the time, even with the disappearance of John Franklin in chase of the Northwest Passage, Church journeyed into the frigid north during 1859. While there, he captured around one hundred studies and sketches which in turn fed into the colossus of a painting he completed in his New York studio. Unlike his other landscapes, the scale of the painting crushed the viewer without the props of symbolism or narrative. He would eventually concede to include a broken ship mast before he sent it off on tour in London. During the 1900s, the painting sank into the recesses of private collections until its rediscovery in 1979.

According to a filing Sylvia dug up from a dusty corner of records copied from other institutes, in 1953, a boy’s body had been found frozen and half ground to paste near Bath, England. Something removed chunks of the flesh that hadn’t been ground smooth by course sand and pebbles. For several weeks after, the skin remained frigid to the touch, even when they stopped keeping body in cold storage. The file mentions no identification. Nor for the 1968 case.

* * *

you to slow down and explain that to me again, I seemed to have missed a key detail between you ordering a – a barista’s nightmare, the sudden fire, and the sentient smoke on a war path. Can you recall who else was there, anyone strike you as odd? Any weird behaviors or objects in the days prior, anyone close to you suddenly falling ill?”

“My friends – my friends and family, no, nothing really, well I guess my brother’s been out of sorts lately, but that’s just allergy season in full swing. All the tree pollen in the air at once. And no, I didn’t notice anything from the people around me. The fire must have started in the kitchen, I have no idea why

* * *

Sylvia brings back the results from their little field trip: a big fat nothing. Any whiff of burning oil or any brush of clammy touch long since dissipated from the scene. Rhea dutifully broke out collection kits for dirt samples, scrapings of tree bark, clumps of crushed grass while the FBI escort grumbled, “The less I know, the better. The agency’s already watching me and my family like a hawk. Expect me to be infected.”

“That’s not going to happen,” Sylvia said back. The wind shifted in the branches above their heads. A beetle fifteen yards away decided to turn away from their direction. Even the bacteria in the ground were sluggish and dormant. There were no worms in the ground for a ten-yard radius around where the body lay for six nights. Agent Stivens had 43 percent charge left in his phone, the beginnings a seasonal cold that will infect his seven-year-old daughter when he got back home in Maryland, and a distaste for how the buckle of his belt digs in when he sits. Since Rhea set up the pH readers, he’s shifted his weight five times.

The agent shifted his weight from left foot to right, nodded, declared, “Damn right.”

Eric points at the head of his procession of trays standing at parade rest. “Soil samples scraped off Mr. Doe’s boots. Don’t match what Rhea collected at all. This guy never set foot in Voyageurs or anywhere around it.”

Next, flecks in a line of petri dishes stand at attention. “Oil paints, some graphite and charcoal. Slivers of pine wood, thinking stretcher bars used with canvas. If it’s not a reproduction of _The Icebergs_, then a rather extensive study produced beforehand.”

A snipped patch of cloth, grimy and faded. “Traces of sea salt, a briny environment briefly. Also, a lot of mineral deposits soaked in. That jacket spent a lot of time in liquids and not in the context of a washing machine.”

Scratching the back of her neck, Sylvia asks, “Need me to get permission for anyone to head over into Canada’s northern territories?”

“Not yet. Going by the jacket’s brand, he seems North American, but I’m not discounting an unfortunate tourist snatched up from another continent either,” he replies.

Sylvia lost her ability to genuinely feel sorry for others years ago, but she’s spent enough time around actual functioning human beings to approximate the sentiment well enough.

“Do you know what’s truly upsetting?” she asks the general air, staring down at the body she’s going to have to arrange an anonymous grave and funeral for. Hair and haircut, what remains of facial features, an approximation of the body’s build before its termination, and the other clues being picked apart – Sylvia’s betting on North America. Maybe Alaska if the demons governing her fate feel charitable.

Eric makes a vague noise of confirmation.

“For all the hubbub the Northwest Passage got in history for being all mythical and nonexistent and death by being ground to a frozen pulp by ice, the damnable thing exists now. Planet keeps warming up a bit more, ice keeps melting, polar bears keep starving, and hello year-round Northwest Passage, safe for voyage. But the historical legacy sticks around and the imagination’s enough to keep it dangerous.”

Eric mindlessly hums in agreement.

She sighs. “I want this painting found. Or whatever’s associated with this painting that likes playing let’s pretend at being glaciers. I want it locked up in Tartarus.”

“Please stop calling our artifact storage Tartarus.”

* * *

and I don’t care about your plans or machinations or how you get off on causing people’s suffering. I don’t care about your – let’s call them games – your _games_, Elias, I don’t have _time_ for that, for any of that. Elias, shut the fuck up, you know what I care about right now? I don’t give two shits about your – yes, I’ll be as crude as I want, I’m not happy with you at all, now or ever. I have nuclear test sites multiplying, Elias, and no documentation or recollection from any Department of Defense or Energy personnel on how these decades old plots of land are suddenly coming into existence. _That’s_ what I

* * *

As head of the Usher Foundation, Sylvia is the only one with an actual FBI badge and a loose approximation at CIA paperwork. The Department of Justice would just as rather the foundation not exist, and Sylvia would just as rather everyone in her department carry a badge or some marker of authority. They compromise.

What’s really too bad is Elias’ refusal to acknowledge the government assigned credentials and Sylvia’s ready to knock his head into his fat mammoth of a wooden desk if he keeps playing hard to get with the files she needs. Due to the timing of _The Iceberg_’s transfer over to London smack in the middle of the American Civil War while everyone on her side of the Atlantic had bigger issues to worry about than paintings with too much fondness for the crushing, bleak, and lonely icescape, rescue and warmth too late to be found, Sylvia’s leads in the States dry up into loosely flapping dead ends in no time. British museums and collections, along with their government sponsors, aren’t as accommodating to supernatural intelligence officers shoulder checking their way into records.

“I’m going to bring Eric with me next time,” Sylvia threatens with one foot twitching to swing up and rest on top of Elias’ paperwork.

“No, we have an agreement, you don’t bring the Web into my institute.”

“What I have is an ongoing case with similarities to old incidents tied to a painting that spent significant time on English soil. Since you refuse to lend me any of your researchers to investigate, I’m inclined to send my own people in.” She takes a loud sip of her coffee to watch his lips tighten just so in distaste.

He sweeps his papers into a pile, away from Sylvia’s side of the desk. “American agents aren’t allowed to trapeze into the United Kingdom as it suits them. I’m afraid –”

“Oh, shove off. British agents aren’t supposed to romp about America as they please but how about you explain to me what the Archivist is up to, scurrying around on my soil without even a how do you do, just giving you a heads up? I’m not even asking for you to expose any of your researchers to artifacts directly. I just want some leads, maybe some auctions, some old sketchbooks.”

“Even so.”

Sylvia swings her legs up, one foot crossed over the other, sharp heels resting on the desk’s polished surface. “Yeah, yeah, your researchers aren’t nearly as sturdy as your archival assistants, but it’s not my fault your assistants got eaten up. God, just post some job openings will you?”

Sylvia takes as a personal vindictive victory every time she drives Elias to sighing and every feather she ruffles. “Please take your feet off my desk.”

“Give me my auction records.” 

Elias doesn’t give her auction records or lackies, so Sylvia leaves his people with a tender parting gift of general mind-breaking paranoia. A little situational awareness can’t hurt too much, and they’ll all get over the episode in a few days.

She has enough presence of mind to give the team back home a heads up. Reliably, Annabelle’s still awake despite it being in the ballpark of too-damn-early four a.m. in D.C. and picks up the phone on the second ring. “Hey, Annabelle,” Sylvia says, riffling through the files she swiped from the unattended archives and photocopied before leaving the institute. Elias now has two broken photocopiers. “I have some legwork I need to do around London and I just wanted to let the team know in case my phone breaks again.”

“Oh, okay. How long do you think you need to spend there?”

Someone smeared some blood on this file. Tasteful. “If no one hears from me in two weeks, assume I’m dead. Eric’s still next in line unless he scares Uriel with another spider nest, then I’m disinheriting him in favor of Bedelia.”

“Really, Bedelia?”

“Yes, Bedelia. Alright, that’s all, see you.”

* * *

that down for me a bit, please. Great, thank you. And you got the – yup, excellent work, okay, right. Now, the candles are for the direst of emergencies, if we get to that stage, we’re all entirely, empirically fucked and it’s been great knowing you. I think they’ll actually be more useful as blunt weapons, but whatever. They smell noxious, they burn forever, and they hurt like a bitch when smashed against a temple.

“We’ll play a fun game of Theseus and the Minotaur, even though I doubt the folks upstairs are going to be pleased leasing us _another_ couple hundred yards of military grade rope when our latest monster inevitable figures out how to chew through another of our grapple lines. The electricity cuts along the line, you know the drill, book it. You all were a pain in the ass to acquire and replacing you will just be an even bigger pain the ass.”

“Love you too, boss.”

“_Ha_, alright, gear up, we’re

* * *

With two parts coaxing and eight parts threatening, Sylvia convinces the handbound sketchbook that it’s in its best interest to accept the flames and crumble to ash. Curious, she holds out a hand to the leaping and twisting tongues of fire. Her hand feels like she slapped the lid of a tub full of liquid nitrogen. A metal lid.

“Rude,” she tells it and smoothly draws her hand back.

Her phone _did_ die on the third jump, when she tracked down the first record of a sketchbook previously owned by an art student particularly taken by _The Iceberg_ and its kin of lonely, giant paintings of wretched frozen ice. That was six days ago, and Eric’s last text mentioned something about a new report trickling in from California. Without a doubt, he’s going to shove the investigative responsibility onto her, power hierarchy notwithstanding. Dismantle one surveillance nest out of boredom and to thumb your nose at your master and now all the surveillance nests are your duties.

Sylvia nudges the pile of ashes and half chewed pages with a poker, coaxing the flame to consume evenly. With Rhea returning to her investigations in New England, Eric busy chasing tourist traps across the Pacific Northwest, Frederick moaning about monsters in the Everglades, and Klara hopefully not getting eaten by the Midwest, Sylvia’s team is all too busy to continue trying to identify the body they picked up from Voyageurs.

As encounters with the Lonely tend to go, there are no missing person’s reports, no searching loved ones, no connections to pursue. Only a cold, empty silence of a line dropped, unnoticed, unacknowledged in favor of the next mysterious death, the next inexplicable violence, the next case, the next witness testimony that managed to survive long enough to crawl though Sylvia’s doors and feed her its story. Her abilities aren’t the most useful for situations like these.

The flames extinguish with a swift stomp. Fifteen minutes later, no traces remain of Sylvia Doa, head of the Usher Foundation.

“Eric, I’m back and I need a new phone.”

* * *

least the latest homicidal terror had the decency to leave some coffee in the pot. Black as night and … smells safe so … ah, still hot and _whoof_, that hit the spot, okay. Artifact storage is still locked up tight; this means nothing. Decontamination and incineration have signs of struggle, but no signs of death. All metal still cool to the touch. Cubicles: abandoned. Closets: doors ripped open, that’s going to be another fun expense report and several months waiting for repairs to even start. Glass all shattered in reception and the questioning rooms, so – _Hey_, you son of a_ bitch_, that’s my office, get the _fuck_ out of my office, I swear to _fucking_ _god_ if you drooled acid on my paperwork I’ll make a flag out of your skin and fly it with rope made from your treated guts, _eat this you_


End file.
